Regarding Spoon's Recruiting

[davidnark]

I am starting a new string of posts because the last one became too long.

Brian and Roy have alleged that Spoon quit recruiting. I checked the facts, and Spoon's last two recruits (whom he never coached) were Jeffers and Perry. The year before that he brought in Justin Love. The year before that, he signed Hughes, Baniak, Tatum, and Heinrich.

It strikes me as ironic that Spoonhour's "giving up" is tenfold better than Brad "working his butt off."

Also, Roy has alleged that H "fell into his lap." Recruiting is often about relationships and reputation; Spoon's relationships and reputation were the reason H fell into his lap. An even stronger argument can be made that Lisch and Liddell "fell into Brad's lap" because both kids and their families were already leaning toward SLU long before Brad was named as head coach.

Anyway you analyze the situation, Brad has been a horrendous recruiter at SLU. Jeff Gordon and Frank Cusumano, both SLU backers in the local media, have stated this recently. WH, the well-respected A-10 expert at the A-10 forum--with no agenda for or against SLU--has offered his opinion that Brad is the worst recruiter in the conference. Our own Nate Latsch has highlighted Brad's recuriting mistakes. You can debate for days whether Brad is a good strategic and game-day coach, but his recruiting is so bad it is undebatable.

[Cowboy]

David, not sure I would call Jeff Gordon a SLU backer, but that is not relevant to this.

Recruiting is the life blood of college sports.

If UB is not successful in recruiting this SPRING, and by this I mean he needs at the bare minimum 2 players that provide immediate help and all other things being equal, the record next year regresses and unless he hits a grand slam in the Fall, which given history is unlikely, he will be gone as I can't imagine CL having no momentum going into the new bldg and yes, a new coach could provide some of that if we are coming off a 12 -18 record. In that case it would be the only momentum.

I will say this, I hope with as much hope as I can that UB is coaching in the new arean. To me this means we get impact players this spring and in the fall, our record improves, we get to next year's post season and we do have momentum. Otherwise it will be real easy to get tickets in the new place.

[kevinfootes]

I don't think anyone on here has said that Spoon didn't have success or wasn't a good coach. He put the team in a position where they really could have been like XU, Marquette, and Creighton. It all fizzled because Hughes bolted. Spoon gets some leeway for getting the team to the dance (with a big assist from Grawer the first two trips). SLU hadn't been that good for 30 years. That said, he went out with a losing record and sulked out of town. At this point SLU is right back where it was pre-Spoon. Romar didn't build anything here, and Brad seems to be improving, albeit at a snail's pace.

Spoon's smugness about recruiting big men was frustrating. If he would have had a kid like Heinrich early on instead of guys Donnie Dobbs and Jeff Harris, they could have gone deep into the tourney (not to knock either Dobbs or Harris, they just weren't real centers for top 50 D1). I think that's where the recruiting comments come from. Not to mention the fact that he was frequently at Tom's and later on his own place during the heat of the recruiting season.

I never liked hiring Brad and thought he should have been on the hotseat after the 9-21 season. As I've stated many times on here, we all know the two finalists the last time the job was open. I'm not sure the list of candidates will be any better this time. If SLU doens't improve next year Brad should have some serious questions to answer.

[davidnark]

When they hired Romar, the process and decision seemed like a big deal to the university and the fans. I remember their being a committee with a broad representation of big-wigs. There were also a lot of decent names tossed around for the job.

When they hired Soderberg, it seemed like the whole process was a joke, and the administration didn't have any interest in conducting a thorough search like they did when they hired Romar (and Spoon, for that matter). I recall Soderberg and Gregory being the only candidates. At the time, I believed that they "settled" for Soderberg because he probably wouldn't have even qualified for an interview had he not been an assistant coach at the time. It sure seemed like they were hoping to achieve the success "on the cheap." The press conference in which Biondi didn't even know how to pronounce Brad's last name didn't exactly alleviate my concerns.

When they next conduct a head coach, whether six month or six years from now, I hope that they do a thorough job and establish a salary, resources, and benefits that attract very good candidates.

[cheeseman]

When Brad was hired they did conduct a national search. There were several candidates that had been indentified. Interviews were held with several applicants. The problem was that Biondi decided that he would make the final decision and took the process out of Woolard's hands. That was my first understanding that Woolard was on the "outs". A national search does not mean you will still hire the right person.

Spoon did not quit recruiting he simply did not enjoy it and so he did not work very hard at it at times. Before he landed Hughes and that class, the whispers were out that that he was on the hot seat unless he picked up the recruiting.

[p diddy]

spoon did not like to recruit. he was making a half million dollars, the fans loved him and he had his cardinal tickets, plus he was in his mid to late 50's and making some big money for the first time. he was content with what was going on. He wasn't interested in the headaches of big expectations that would have come with getting more top talent.

for those youngsters. In 94, SLU was ranked in the top 25 and drawing 20,000 fans a night and getting all kinds of national press. slu was on the verge of becoming a national power back then and the local area was brimming with talent (white, woods, carrawell, robertson, etc...)

combine that with the fact that spoon was a lovable guy who everybody loved that it should have been easy to bring in some good players. It wasn't like today, when slu was a hard sell. SLU was the hot thing going back then.

when scott, H, and claggett needed some inside help, spoon brought in greg hardin and sekue berentine. he had two or three years of bad recruiting and it showed when the big three left. slu really fell off in 96 and 97. what saved charlie was justin hughes' heart condition and the hiring of cbc coach derek thomas to the staff. the year after llarry left, we under .500 and spoon was gone.

now, spoon was not as brad is now, but at the time, he was in a position to really take slu to the national level on a more consistent basis. he just choose not to take advantage of it.

folks, we had our chance to do what the gonzagas, southern Illinois, xaviers, marquettes are doing. It was in during those mid 90's. that was slu's window of opportunity to be really good.

bad boyz for life

s

[Basketbill]

the further we get away from it the easier it is to forget, Hardin, Barentine and Larry simmons as the great big men recruits who were going to save the day for our guards.....

Claggs and Highmark who in their junior and senior years excelled and got to the NCAA tourney. Hughes put the team on his back and got us there. spoon had 3 very good years, one 16-14 year and three sub .500 years. Outside of the cyclic keep the stars at home trend, spoon did not recruit well. Love came because he wanted to play with Hughes.

Cobbin good but not a star.

I loved Harris but would we all be happy if BS signed a 6-5 forward high school senior tomorrow?? The bar is higher for Soderberg because we need a difference maker or two this spring.

[Basketbill]

has the window of opportunity passed or is another one down the road?

[thetorch]

Spoon was not a poor recruiter per se. For the amoiunt of work he actually did involving recruting he did very well for himself. Spoon was an old school guy, like a Bobby Knight now, and the AAU scum was just coming into vogue and he didn't want to deal with that #####.

I think his first class consisted of Pederson, Dobbs, Macauley & Waldman. Not bad. His second was Turner, Campbell, Robinson, and Harris. His 3rd class with Barentine was a real stinker and ruined the chances for continuity after Claggs and Co graduation. His next two classes were fair with the likes of Jamal Johnson, Walker, Cobbin, Redden, but also had some big misses, Biles, Simmons, Caswell. The class next even excluding Hughes was on paper one of the best classes ever for SLU. 2 top 150 big men plus Tatum and Hughes. For many reasons it didn't work out as planned. Next was Fergerson, a serviceable guy, Love, and Cranford who was terrible. His final class had Diener, Braun, Perry and Latimer. Seems to me Charlie had some problems with determining talent level. He recruited as many huge busts as he did stars but knew how to get key role players into the program.

[BLIKNS]

Spoon`s last class of Perry,Jeffers,and Vincent Hart was a good one.Thought I remember reading,maybe here,that Vincent went back to Gary and was shot.He was highly thought of somewhere in the top 100-200 range.Shame.

[billiken_roy]

lisch was not leaning to slu before he soderberg came to slu. in fact soderberg had to work to change the family perception because of the horrible job that jill did recruiting kevin's older sister.

[p diddy]

Just to show that brad wasn't the only one with the illness.

spoon passed on:

kent williams: whose dad drove him down to spoon's office because he wanted to be a billiken. he is currently SIU's career leading scorer.

Gary Buchanan: he scored more than 1,700 points for Big East Villanova.

Chris Thunnel: 6'9" kid from O'Fallon who transferred back from Florida International. he also went to siu.

the point is, slu wasn't a team middling in mediocrity back then. we were the bees knees of college basketball. if we were in that position now, suggs, brandenburg and all of these other kids would have been already done. spoonball was just that hot, not only locally, but around the country. everything a recruit wanted was there, but charlie didn't have the energy to take advantage of it all. we did get a few players like perry, jeffers and the local kids, but we also signed the likes of berentine, hardin, j.j. halliburton, donnie adkins, paul nondas, ihsan scott (a steak dinner to anyone who remembers him), carlos toomer, corey grays, eric jones, larry sssssssimons, during this time period. remember,this was a period when slu was a hot ticket and a hot commodity and an attractive place for many potential recruits. Much like xavier, gonzaga, marquette, southern illinois, creighton and those places which we long to be like today. We were those schools, but we didn't capitalize and that is why we have continued to spin our wheels today.

you look at those schools, when they got to be successful and had the juice, they built on it and continued to be successful in the long term. we didn't.

that group sounds like the Ikeakors and dixons of the world.

bad boyz for life

[slu72]

This is truly a shame. Sounds like Charlie got complacent. I'd never heard Buchanan wanted to come to SLU...an amazing miss there. Goes to show how hard a HC must be willing to work it to sustain success. And who knows, had UB made some better decisions on some of the locals he missed on, maybe we'd all be praising him today rather than the opposite. Despite what a lot of people think, I'd love to see him land a great spring class that can get us over the top next year, and then build on it from that point. However, has it come too late to convince any of the '08 kids SLU's the place to play?

[MusicCityBilliken]

Buchanan was the key in getting Reggie Bryant to transfer to SLU. So he must have fond thoughts about us.